2008 State of the Union address: on Health Care

George W. Bush: Expand consumer choice, not government control

The Congress must also expand health savings accounts, create Association Health Plans for small businesses, promote health information technology, and confront the epidemic of junk medical lawsuits. With all these steps, we will help ensure that decisions about your medical care are made in the privacy of your doctor’s office--not in the halls of Congress.

George W. Bush: FactCheck: Tax deduction insures at most 9M, & not poorest

Actually, there is a lot of uncertainty as to how many would benefit from Bush’s proposal. The projected number of uninsured in 2010--51 million--would be reduced by about 6.8 million to 9.2 million, according to different studies. One study calculated that the number of uninsured would actually increase by 1.5 million, because some employers would be prompted stop giving health insurance benefits.

These studies agree that the proposal gives much greater tax benefits to those with higher incomes. A majority of the uninsured, however, couldn’t benefit from the proposed tax deduction at all, because they don’t pay federal income taxes.

Kathleen Sebelius: First step of overhaul: health care to 10 million children

We know that caring for our children, so they have a healthy and better start in life, is what grownups do. A large majority of the Congress are ready, right now, to provide health care to 10 million American children, as a first step in overhauling our health care system.